Posted
by
Zonk
on Tuesday April 15, 2008 @07:54AM
from the accomnodations-for-all dept.

KrispyChips writes "In what could be a first Microsoft is working to create a special build of Windows, just because Windows doesn't run very well on a certain computer. ASUS' runaway success Eee PC is now 'officially' available with Windows XP, but (according to APC magazine) is not exactly a great experience. There are none of the nice pre-loaded apps that come with the Linux version, for example. And XP has some real problems coping with the screen size and limited system specs of the unit. As a result, ASUS says it is going back to Microsoft and working on a special XP build that will be lightweight and more suited to UMPCs."

If it was the year of the linux desktop (finally) then why would ASUS be making such an effort with MS to get rid of the linux on their EEE PC?

Because ASUS wants to sell eee PCs (make money), with whatever software people are willing or wanting to dump their money for -- even if it is Windows, if it runs slower than Linux on the eee, if it is only because of FUD fed fear of Linux, etc.

ASUS may have concluded that Linux was the best suited OS for their PC, performance and feature wise. But if a Windows version will be bought by people that wouldn't buy it otherwise, then ASUS is more than likely to welcome Microsoft and ship a WindowsXPLite version of the eee.

They chose Linux not because it was free software, but because it was the best suited OS. And that may be a reason to consider that it is the year of Linux, on the eee PC at least:

* Linux is the best suited OS for the platform, performance and feature wise;

* The dominant OS developer is playing catch up, and still not delivering the goods.

I have a dumb question. Why didn't MSFt create a special version of Windows XP for UMPC's back when UMPC's were brand new? Why did they limit the devices potential trying to run a full desktop OS on a 7" screen? Why the change of heart all of a sudden? Is it because suddenly real competition showed up?

UMPC's were a great idea running shoddy software. Nokia's n750/n800/n810 the iPhone, and a few others are showing that you can get lightweight device with decent battery life if you use lightweight software. what's even better is that people are willing to buy them if the price is right.

MS had a vista product aimed at this market segment: origami, however vista is too large for this ultra cheap pc. they also have windows mobile. But every one know windows mobile has very little to do with windows, and fails to run everyday windows applications.Vista origami can run nicely on the already existing (900$ ) Umpc, but the ultra cheap eee pc was an unexpected success.

And MS already has a modularized version of XP ready, XP embedded. It is a small step to offer that to Asus with special licensing

Vista was still in development when UMPC's and even tablet PC's where first released. XP, Vista, and yes even OS X make poor tablet and small screen interfaces. Even Windows Mobile has a poor interface.

Apple was smart when they designed the iphone. there is no dock in sight anywhere. Nokia created a new interface for the N750/800 that is simple to use, and yet is easily adapted to older software interfaces.

MSFT has everything so bundled into each other that putting a new interface on windows becomes a pain. let alone taking out the stuff that isn't needed to improve speed and performance.

I don't know why you're omitting Windows CE. It can run on x86 and takes very little resources.I know why Microsoft omitted it: because it won't run XP software and most of the CE software is meant to work with touchscreens, not mouse.

Basically what caught MS on the wrong leg wasn't any one factor, but a combination. To successfully exploit the UMPC platform they need a (1) lightweight (2) desktop OS and (3) as large an application mass as they can get.

ASUS is a business not an evangelist. They used linux because it was cheap and ran well on the hardware they are trying to sell, not because they want to push some agenda.
Every time I hear someone talking about a company pushing Linux on the desktop over windows I think of this woman I worked with who was having an affair with a very financially successful married man. Every few months she would get all excited because the divorce papers were finally coming through and she would be recognized as his wife. Then a few weeks after she would be crying because it was going to be "just a few more months". Instead of recognizing the situations for what it was; She was just a cheap, easy lay and he was never leaving his wife, she clung onto the idea that she would eventually be his wife. Linux on the desktop is the mistress, windows is the wife, big business is the successful husband and unless the mistress puts a bullet in the wifes head the husband isn't voluntarily divorcing his wife anytime soon.

I don't agree with this. OEMs HATE Windows, they would rather have their own system like Apple does. They would love to be able to ship Linux, but Microsoft's monopoly prevents them from doing so.

There is a decreasing momentum with Windows, however, the EeePC sales without Windows has caught the attention of OEMS and don't be surprised to see more Linux based "small" systems.

The ironic part is that this is how Linux will beat Microsoft, just like Microsoft beat others decades ago. P.C.s were small and unnoticed by the likes of DEC and Wang until there were too many of them. Linux is doing the same thing to Windows.

It is a slow process, but in the last 5 years huge but subtle progress has been made. Sooner or later, people will realize they've been using Linux for a decade.

Linux is far easier to support than is Windows. Have you seen the EeePC?

Linux is far more modular, offers far more diagnostic tools, and is far less brittle than Windows.

With Linux you can troubleshoot a bad video driver for X and still have the system workable. Using ssh you can administer the machine remotely.

Windows sucks to support, the answer is always the same "Reboot." It works now? OK, good by.

Sure, but which costs more? You can have the end user reboot all day while talking to a phone monkey, and its fairly cheap.

You can't expect today's end users to open a terminal, type arcane commands and successfully read back the output to the phone support person. SSH is neat but in my experience with linux half of the support calls will be about failed wireless networking issues, so remote administration won't fly.

Actually OEMs like the concept of Windows. They do not have to support the OS.

This is a misconception to say the least. OEMs hate the release cycles with Windows, they hate being dictated to, and they hate having to support stupid features, they hate not having control over OS changes.

"Back in the day" when I worked at a tape drive company working with Compaq on OS/2, there were *always* "fire drills" about this dictate from Microsoft or this change they made in the OS. Compaq, one of the bigger OEMs at the

How does Microsoft, a company convicted of illegally maintaining their monopoly on operating systems on "personal computers" in the U.S. and Europe keep "personal computer OEMs" from using a different OS?

First off, Microsoft will not allow ASUS to put open source applications on Windows preloads. Secondly, ASUS isn't dumb enough to put disparaging comments on the screen of a device which is already in the hands of the customer and tells them they should have bought the other model.As far as how I see Microsoft moving on this goes, I see a new OS from them called Microsoft Windows CE-Vista for Eee PC or UMP Edition. I doubt they can get XP down to the size which can compete with Linux so putting a new face

same goes for XP on these low end devices from what I've heard. They can get XP on there but stuff just the user eXPerience is really poor.I can't imagine it is that bad when sensiblly configured. Sure the site linked in the article shows the dialog running off the screen but it is only just off and I bet it fits under the classic theme.

The performance while it won't be a world beater shouldn't be too bad either. The processor and ram are slow/low by current standards but not bad by the standards of when XP

Ok, I'll bite.
I bought the EEEPC 5 months ago specifically for one reason: it was small enough to fit in my s.o.'s handbag. [wordpress.com] Yes, you will ask yourself why people make acquisitions purely due to design and dimension of a laptop, but Apple for instance has been winning in this category for decades. The fact that it ran Linux satisfied my inner geek and that my partner didn't have to lug around a laptop case and the ubiquitous female handbag made it perfect.

And you know what: it's been absolutely perfect. Equipped with an SD Card, an USB mouse and a set of headphones it's a beautiful, tiny, unobtrusive office laptop during working hours and at home fast enough to comfortably use the BBC's iplayer, watch an.avi of a good movie and hook it up to the inhouse Ipod. All for ca 250 pounds. Yes, you get a normal sized Dell for that these days, but that's not as small, hence not fitting the criteria.

I like the idea of an "XP Lite" too. But I bet Dell and the other hardware manufacturers (who want to sell you the latest, greatest computer) will raise Hell at the idea of releasing a new OS for old computers. They'll probably raise Hell as it is (since MS has been pushing THEM to get rid of even the full version of XP).

I like the idea of an "XP Lite" too. But I bet Dell and the other hardware manufacturers (who want to sell you the latest, greatest computer) will raise Hell at the idea of releasing a new OS for old computers. They'll probably raise Hell as it is (since MS has been pushing THEM to get rid of even the full version of XP).

Well, the high-end vendors might be pissed at this, that's true.

But, Microsoft can't ignore the prospect of small, cheap, low-end laptops becoming widespread which are being shipped with Linux by default. An entire market segment devoted to less-powerful machines (which, actually sounds quite cool) probably worries them if they can't play and get people to use their stuff.

They simply can't find themselves being a company which can't provide an OS for the emerging market in less-powerful machines. Of course, the funny thing is, Microsoft has never been optimized for small resource footprints -- they've always required more resources than you have available.

I'll be curious to see how well they do this. Quite frankly, Linux and FreeBSD have always rocked on less-powerful hardware, because they can fit into a smaller space more readily. Retroactively making XP less of a resource pig isn't going to be easy I bet.

But, Microsoft can't ignore the prospect of small, cheap, low-end laptops becoming widespread which are being shipped with Linux by default.

Neither can Dell, HP or any other hardware manufacturer. This trend impacts them every bit as much as Microsoft, although on the whole I think hardware manufacturers should be able to adapt easier than Microsoft.

For decades we've been subject to the hardware/software upgrade circle jerk. When Vista hit the market millions of PC users, particularly in the enterpri

For decades we've been subject to the hardware/software upgrade circle jerk... [snip]... And the cost of the hardware to carry that bloatware created a reverse circle jerk vortex in the minds of many technology consumers.

I don't disagree with anything you said, other than forcing me to read the words "circle jerk" too many times. That's just... wrong.:-P

"Neither can Dell, HP or any other hardware manufacturer. This trend impacts them every bit as much as Microsoft, although on the whole I think hardware manufacturers should be able to adapt easier than Microsoft. "I think both MS and the hardware manufacturers have known about this for a long time. The eternal upgrade cycle was driven by obsolescence. The moment that faster CPUs would not obsolete older, slower CPUs because of the lack of killer apps requiring faster CPU speed, the profits would drop off.

I'll be curious to see how well they do this. Quite frankly, Linux and FreeBSD have always rocked on less-powerful hardware, because they can fit into a smaller space more readily. Retroactively making XP less of a resource pig isn't going to be easy I bet.

It'll certainly be interesting to see what they do. I'd say the quickest thing they can do is kill off all legacy APIs and crufty bits, but I suspect that too much of their own code requires it to function.

The thing I'm particularly interested in is what they do about OpenOffice. Obviously, there is absolutely no way they are going to want OOo being shipped with XP-lite, but equally, they do need to ship something; but aren't their current "Works" apps basically Office apps with the fancy bits disabled?

I do not see MS having an issue with these "Less" Powerful machines. In a year these machines specs will be well within what XP will need to run.

Sure, eventually technology will make even a fat pig like Vista look small and svelte. But Linux will still be slimmer -- and therefore cheaper. If people have the choice between a $200 machine and a $100 machine that does as much or more, guess which one they will pick.

Another problem for Microsoft is that people want their computers to be useful. Windows b

Microsoft designs software for newer computers, not necessarily more powerful ones. In general, new desktops are more powerful than old desktops, but when the market moves in the less powerful but more portable direction, Microsoft will follow suit. And no, this will not be generally available.

Not really. They've been designing OSes for less powerful computers for years but in years past they were only really intended for private parties or software assurance customers, not for the general public.

To further comment on this, the OS the parent is referring to is Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC's which is based off Windows XP Embedded, to be a replacement for the 9x/2000 machines that volume license customers with SA contracts may be using. It runs on less memory and processor and is up to date on patching (as up to date as XP can be). While this wasnt intended to be a full featured os (I believe its more for remote desktop and holding over old hardware until companies can upgrade), I have used it i

The Eee PC is not really being sold as a desktop replacement but more as a portable supplemental computer, and CE already has a GUI that works with smaller screens. So what does XP do that CE doesn't, thta's needed here?

Well, CE is pretty limited and not really a great OS for the Eee PC but... it's hardly related to Windows 3.11. It's a true 32-bit OS, the only problem is its numerous platform incompatibilities and small software library. I've owned CE devices from 2.0 to Windows Mobile 5.

I don't think MS would ever say CE competes with Linux in all situations, but it did try to market CE on Eee-formfactor devices once, like the IBM Workpad z50 (which I used to own) and the HP Jornada 820.

And, with XP being taken out back and shot in favor of the new baby, why didn't they try to come up with a scaled-down version of Vista that would run on the hardware? Surely they'd want to disprove the claims that Vista was a hardware pig any chance they got.And then, with Windows 7 theoretically coming soon, they, theoretically, could use this hardware as a testbed for showing off just how *amazing* the performance of 7 is compared to everything else.

LOL, I just got a picture in my head of some poor bastard being put in charge of stripping down Vista to run on a computer that can't even handle the full version of XP. The poor bastard would be suicidal in a week.

And, with XP being taken out back and shot in favor of the new baby, why didn't they try to come up with a scaled-down version of Vista that would run on the hardware? Surely they'd want to disprove the claims that Vista was a hardware pig any chance they got.

Because they Realized they can't, the fact that Vista IS a bloated hog coming back to bite them in the ass.

Regarding CE: Microsoft seems positively schizophrenic when it comes to positioning CE in any market...it's theoretically their "embedded OS" but out SAN uses "XP Embedded" as its controlling software, and apparently CE is relegated to basic phone use, down from the PDAs and smaller pseudo-PCs of the late 90s, early '00s (much like the Eee machine, come to think of it...)

Those smaller psuedo-PCs, like the NEC Mobile Pro line, which were very similar to the Eee sucked because they were: A. Expensive, usually $800+, and B. Could not run standard full desktop apps. The Eee can, which is part of the reason for its success. It can do everything a Thinkpad X61 can do, just more slowly, but at about 1/3 the price, and almost 1/2 the size and weight. The "1/3 the pric

XP has the whole backward-compatibility thing going which is both their big strength and the albatross around their neck. In particular, I expect the big draw is running your standard non-hobbled version of MS Office so you can read the files sent to you by other people running it that nothing else can read. And unlike Linux, CE has no mechanism for even trying to run standard Windows apps under emulation.

WinCE only supports a subset of the win32 api. Most (think 99%) of the 95/98/2000/XP applications won't run without modifications. However there are ports of office (very simplified) and IE for WinCE, so it would be possible for MS to create a reasonable laptop system out of CE without too much effort. But I guess customers would simply never accept something that looks so similar to a WinXP laptop yet cannot run the same apps. They accept the non-compatibility on a phone, not on a laptop.

Isn't the problem with XP software that most programs now expect to use more than 800*600?ie: this is not just a problem for Microsoft, but for all app developers.I know in our shop we stopped really worrying about 8x6 a long time ago since most customers prefer detail over big fonts(low dpi) and scrolling - if we design most windows for use at 8x6 it looks awfully cramped on anything larger.

(having said that I am undergoing a retraining of sorts as I adapt to my n810)

Most software on all operating systems expects that you will have higher than 800x600. Just try running Linux in VMWare using 800x600 resoultion. Many apps go off the screen, and there's no way to even reach the stuff on the right and bottom sides of the window. Even shrinking the window doens't help, because it doesn't allow you to scroll around. This is common on a lot of options screens, that have to be so large, because they present 40,000 different options to the user in a single form.

Which is pretty stupid, since it means that they are effectively excluding mobile users. I tend to test sites on my 770, which has a 800x480 screen (not all of which is available when the dock is visible). If the important information isn't visible without scrolling then the design fails. With devices like the iPhone becoming more common, designing a site that doesn't work on a device with a 3" screen is just stupid.

Anyone using a 3" screen and not expecting to scroll when surfing is pretty stupid too. I personally still consider 800x600 into my designs (though I target a higher resolution), but I can understand why designers are leaving it behind. A 800x600 site viewed at the much higher resolutions that most people use today looks like shit.

It depends on the site. The designer should look at who the intended audience is before just making a blanket statement that it's just stupid to not design a site for a 3" screen. I've worked on sites that a mobile/handheld user was likely to access the site and the design should take that into consideration. I've also worked on sites where the intended audience would never view the site on a handheld. Designing it so that it looked just as good on a 3" screen as it did on a 21" would have just been a w

...I am going to interpret this as a victory for the common user, the ones who are saying no to Vista and yes to keeping XP or switching to Linux, that Microsoft is admitting without saying the actual words that they no longer dictate to the market place what we will use, that we refuse to keep buying every larger and faster PCs when do not necessarily NEED a bigger and faster PCs.

Not at all. In fact, you might even see (takes a very deep breath) Vista Lite Home Basic, Vista Lite Home Premium, Vista Lite Business, Vista Lite Business Enterprise, and Vista Lite Ultimate, Vista Lite for the Eee PC Home Basic, Vista Lite for the Eee PC Home Premium, Vista Lite for the Eee PC Business, Vista Lite for the Eee PC Business Enterprise, and Vista Lite for the Eee PC Ultimate. =P

Microsoft has been desperately trying to obsolete XP. They want it over and done with, gone, Vista is the new OS. But now this is introducing XP as the OS in a whole new class of machines, meaning Microsoft will have to continue to support it.

Now as I understand it, the way Linux is designed, everything is incremental improvements. The kernel is the only linuxy part shared across all linux distros and everything else bundled in is at the discretion of the distro owners. So even if some parts of the distro get a rebuild, there's more incrimentalism here than "chuck the baby with the bathwater" rebuilds leading to Vista-style clusterfucks. Is my understanding correct here?

Logically, Microsoft should have stuck with the incrimentalism. If they wanted a full rebuild of the OS, they should have done so, made sure it ran fast on the hardware out at the time of release, and included a VM-bundled copy of XP to provide backwards compatibility, the way OSX comes with a copy of OS9.

What I'm seeing here is Microsoft is forced to keep XP around longer which means there's less and less reason for people to think about moving to Vista. With all of the web 2.0 apps and things like terminal services, the laptop becomes a powerful dumb terminal. I've seen laptops that crawl running normal apps run like greased lighting once an rdp session is open, they can handle the client just fine. So the Vista upgrade strategy, already suffering from massive consumer blowback, is struck another blow. XP remains viable and on the market and Vista remains the "Now why the hell would I want to do that to myself?" OS. XP will continue to sell as machines wear out but there will not be the huge windfall of the entire install base making a migration to a brand new OS over the next several years. Seems like a proper marketing disaster here. Interesting.

Your understanding of Linux is correct. Build everything in little parts, and make every little part do it's own thing well. Even the kernel is modular. If you don't have multiple processors, don't build in support for it, and your kernel image will end up smaller. Same with a lot of other features. Sometimes, certain parts of Linux are revamped. Take for instance KDE4. It was basically a complete rewrite of KDE. But they did it the right way. They made sure it was efficient from the beginning, and

Microsoft has been desperately trying to obsolete XP. They want it over and done with, gone, Vista is the new OS. But now this is introducing XP as the OS in a whole new class of machines, meaning Microsoft will have to continue to support it.

Of course, the problem for MS is, they couldn't run on smaller hardware when that was new hardware. Microsoft has always built their stuff to require a fair amount of resources with the expectation everyone should be upgrading soon.

Logically, Microsoft should have stuck with the incrimentalism. If they wanted a full rebuild of the OS, they should have done so, made sure it ran fast on the hardware out at the time of release, and included a VM-bundled copy of XP to provide backwards compatibility, the way OSX comes with a copy of OS9.

Not quite. You would want to make the OS fast on the PCs that are out 1-2 years before release, because that's the only way you'll get anyone to upgrade their current rigs. Else, it'll only sell with new PCs, which you would be getting anyway, rather than consciously upgrading, making another sale that you wouldn't have.And, if the OS runs fast on old hardware, it'd fly on the modern machines.

"Lightweight XP" - Hell, that's what I've been using across my rigs for years, thank God for nLite. XP has grown to be a pretty stable OS by now, and if you get rid of all the crap Microsoft stuffed into the system it's actually lightweight enough to be run on low-spec hardware just fine.

I just bought the Eee with Windows a few days ago here in Tokyo. Actually I havent really closely followed the story, but I think I already saw it here in the stores with Windows XP at least 1.5 month ago.

Anyway, just to comment on the usability: With the preconfigured Windows setup the small screen is really not used to the optimum. But if you tweak a little bit (like hiding the startbar, setting the Desktop environment to maximum performance etc.) things turn out to be quite ok. I also installed the 'hacked' scaling video driver, which works nicely and allows me to run my VJing application at 1024x768. So far without crash.

I would have preferred to buy the Linux version of this machine, but couldn't get it here at Big Camera. So the Windows version was more of a second choice. No proper command line but, anyway, I dont regret it.

Oh, and Microsoft/Asus does deliver some bundled stuff with the machine. Some LiveBlabla (office suite or something). I uninstalled it without looking at it though (for openoffice).

To conclude I dont think the normal Windows XP is such an unpleasant experience on the Eee. Of course a version with a smaller harddisk footprint might be nice.

I would have preferred to buy the Linux version of this machine, but couldn't get it here at Big Camera. So the Windows version was more of a second choice. No proper command line but, anyway, I dont regret it.

Why not just install Linux on it? Puppeee and/or eeeXubuntu both work great. And with SquashFS/UnionFS you end up with plenty of disk space.

A lightweight version of Windows XP sounds like a wonderful idea. Perhaps they could then port it to desktop computers so they will be really fast!
(reality sinks in)
Wait, standard XP was lightweight when it first came out. It was also horribly insecure, that's why the service packs came out. The service packs made XP slower and of course your going to need an antivirus...

Never mind, it's a horrible idea. They might as well start from scratch on a whole new OS.

Microsoft has offered a product called Windows XP Embedded [microsoft.com] for a long time. It lets hardware vendors basically roll their own version of XP to suit the requirements of their device. They can take out this or that, assume a smaller screen resolution, or what-have-you. A tool that ships with the product cooks up an install image to their specifications, et voila!

I don't see anything particularly revolutionary about Microsoft helping Asus out with a customized version of Windows for the Eee PC when they routin

Microsoft doesn't have to work that hard! There are plenty of stripped-down versions of WindowsXP available through "The Pirate Bay" today. I'm sure quite a few versions there will be more than acceptable on the EeePC.

But, if they don't use what's there, what they make will end up there... so either way...

I mean presumably there is a windows cost added on, and with Linux/Win being sold side by side this might finally get the consumers to see something that only us geeks have been that knowledgeable about: ie, the windows tax.

I've had mine since they came out, and I will not be dirtying it with windows...

I've been using my Eee pc for a few months without a hitch. The standard OS is good, plus installing something like Ubuntu is a breeze. I've had random people asking me to show them how to use it, where they can buy it and so on. Nobody , and I mean nobody has asked me : Can I install windows on it ?

In my point of view, this article shows how desperate Microsoft is in the light of newly educated consumers making a valid choice to go with a free and friendly OS over their bloat-OS.

Not to take anything away from XP, as it has its place in the desktop arena and runs just fine for me as a gaming rig.

No, we're complaining that it sucks when the OEM doesn't. We don't have a problem with OEMs bundling apps with their hardware (something that major OEMS like Apple, Dell and HP do all the time), we just have a problem with OS vendors who are convicted monopolies with 90+% of the market bundling a bunch of crap in an attempt to put their competitors out of business.

But when Apple and Linux distros do it, it's okay? And it was okay for MS to do it BEFORE they lost their monopoly court case? Okay, now I'm clear.

Well, I assume you're trolling, but I'll answer you anyway (feel free to mod me down) -- Linux vendors and Apple are not bundling apps in order to put competitors out of business.

Microsoft bundled DoubleSpace/DriveSpace to put Stac out of business, they bundled EMM386 to put Quarterdeck out of business, they bundled Internet Explorer to put Netscape out of business, and they bundled Media Player to get Apple to stop making QuickTime for Windows (I believe the testimony given in court was they told Apple to "knife the baby" in regards to QuickTime for Windows).

You might like Microsoft's products, that's fine, but if you agree with their business practices then you're no better than they are.

They bundled DoubleSpace/DriveSpace because it was a useful thing that they felt many of their users would benefit from. Same goes for EMM386, IE, MP, and all the other stuff. They've added a lot of features to their OS, without charging much more for it. Do you really want to pay to have support for extended memory? Or for browsing web pages? or for playing video files? Because until MS came along and started including it in the base cost of the OS, a lot of this stuff did cost extra.

Oh, the iPod works wonderfully with other online stores.But iTunes is worthless for other music players.ITunes itself is not the store. It's just a manager (and not a very good one).If it were a commercial offering, then I would have an issue with it conflicting with other music managers or even WMP. But it's not, you can get free ones anywhere.

It seems like your objection is based on the fact that iPod has been successful. The weird thing to me is that iPod is inferior in many respects to other players

Or are you implying that somehow, Apple should be offering all its music DRM-free against the wishes of the copyright holders? Because at this point, it's no longer Apple that wants the DRM on that music... (Video is another matter: Hey Steve! How about you use your weight on Disney's board to remove the DRM from the Disney movies you sell on iTunes Store?)

Windows should only be bundled with non-competing, non-commercial apps.

That is, it's cool if Dell bundles MS Office, but it's not cool if Microsoft forces them to do this so OpenOffice can't compete. Most customers will want an office suite so something should be bundled, but it should be the decision of the manufacturer, not the OS provider.

You are really hitting on all the "misinterpret the argument" cylinders today, you know that?

Minor difference here, but MS was bundling applications that they made and abusing their monopoly position in one market for an advantage in another. Perhaps the same could be said for Apple as it is bundling its own iTunes software along with a variety of other applications. However, I don't see it as the same situation with Canonical as they didn't write most of the software they are bundling. They may have added to the software but much of what they distribute is the creation of others.

jamincolins is correct, and to add to his argument: canonical bundles software that is actually useful to the end user. If MS really was serious about making life easy for the customer they would've bundled MS Office and a decent mailing client to name a few.

Anything and everything bundled with Ubuntu (using it as an example since Canonical was named) is actually useful to most PC users (there are a few apps that some will use and some not), AND all applications can be removed and replaced with something else. Let's look at web browsers as a for-instance: don't like firefox? Uninstall it and load something else, even IE should you wish to do so (it comes with wine) whereas I dare you to try and completely remove IE from a windows installation. You just can't.

The way I see it Canonical makes it as easy as possible for developers of open and proprietary software to add/install their products to a Ubuntu installation.

Microsoft bundled apps that they produced. Xandros (who supplies Linux for the Eee) does not produce OpenOffice.org or any other application that comes with the Eee. Furthermore, Asus would be doing the bundling, not Microsoft.

It's not Microsoft that would have to include them, it's ASUS. But for cost reasons, it would probably have to be windows versions of the same open-source software that's on the linux version. (Do they use OpenOffice? It's not very lightweight!)

Firefox and Openoffice.org have _earned_ their place on a desktop. IE or Mediaplayer didn't: MS used his OS monopoly to push them in the desktop. The same with Apple: they have a _almost_ monopoly for music players, but using this to push Quicktime ( = crap ) on everybody's desktop should not be allowed.

And they're doing it with Safari too. The other day, when I downloaded an update to iTunes (7.6.2??) it tried to sneak Safari in there. If I would have just kept on clicking next, it would have downloaded and installed Safari. Luckily I noticed, and unchecked the option for Safari. Apple is getting just as bad as MS.

HP and Dell each sell about 11 million computers total per quarter. So that's about 3 million per month. Roughly half are laptops - 1.5 million. How many different models of laptop does Dell have? A dozen? At least 7 (from their home laptop page). If the low-end laptops sell better, let's say their inspiron line accounts for 70% of sales volume - about a million units. They have 4 inspiron models, so that's roughly 250,000 units/month per model for the largest PC maker in the world. On average, they sell

Asus is not even in the top 5, and maybe has a 5% market share to Dell's 15-20%. So for them, a laptop that sells 100,000 units a months is indeed a runaway success.